Billie Eilish's new album will touch on her experiences with trauma and the healing on the horizon.
In a new Rolling Stone cover story published Thursday (June 17), the âYour Powerâ singer, who returns with her sophomore LP Happier Than Ever July 30, opens up about the well of painful memories from which she drew for her upcoming record.
âI went through some crazy sât, and it really affected me and made me not want to go near anyone ever,â said Eilish, though refrains from mentioning her abusers by name.
âThereâve been times where Iâve been really affected by somebody, and I said to them, âI need to tell you how youâve made me feel,ââ she recalled. âAnd they said something that was like, âI canât handle this right now. I just canât handle this right now. This is going to be too much for me.ââ
Eilish said she became fed up with âbeing fâked withâ by hurt people who hurt people. âI was talking to a friend about their life, and they told me all this crazy traumatizing sât that happened to them. And Iâm like, âOh, right, you donât have to treat everyone like a piece of garbage, just because youâve been hurt.â Itâs OK to be traumatized by something and have bad instincts, but also, thereâs no excuse for abusing people,â she said. âThere just is not. I feel like everything is excuses all the time. Excuses, excuses."
A lot of this energy is carried over on the singerâs new album, like on the albumâs opener, âGetting Older,â on which Eilish sings: âWasnât my decision to be abused ⊠Iâve had some trauma/Did things I didnât wanna/Was too afraid to tell ya/But now I think itâs time.â
âI had to take a break in the middle of writing that one, and I wanted to cry, because it was so revealing. And itâs just the truth,â the 19-year-old said in reflecting on the song.
âI donât know how to explain this, but all the songs on the album feel like a specific time, because they feel like when I wrote them and made them,â she explained. âItâs so funny that to the rest of the world itâs going to feel like a certain moment for them, and itâs going to be so different than mine. Thatâs such a weird, weird thing to wrap my head around. And I will fucking love it. I love it. Thatâs the reason you do this. Itâs for that.â
As for her hopes of how fans will respond to Happier Than Ever, Eilish said: âI hope people break up with their boyfriends because of it. And I hope they donât get taken advantage of.â
Read Billie Eilish's full Rolling Stone interview here.